I couldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes.

This old ape-man--he was their chief--was a sort of red Challenger,

with every one of our friend's beauty points, only just a trifle

more so. He had the short body, the big shoulders, the round chest,

no neck, a great ruddy frill of a beard, the tufted eyebrows,

the `What do you want, damn you!' look about the eyes, and the

whole catalogue. When the ape-man stood by Challenger and put his

paw on his shoulder, the thing was complete. Summerlee was a bit

hysterical, and he laughed till he cried. The ape-men laughed too--

or at least they put up the devil of a cacklin'--and they set to

work to drag us off through the forest. They wouldn't touch the

guns and things--thought them dangerous, I expect--but they carried

away all our loose food. Summerlee and I got some rough handlin'

on the way--there's my skin and my clothes to prove it--for they

took us a bee-line through the brambles, and their own hides are

like leather. But Challenger was all right. Four of them carried

him shoulder high, and he went like a Roman emperor. What's that?"

It was a strange clicking noise in the distance not unlike castanets.

"There they go!" said my companion, slipping cartridges into the

second double barrelled "Express." "Load them all up, young

fellah my lad, for we're not going to be taken alive, and don't

you think it! That's the row they make when they are excited.

By George! they'll have something to excite them if they put us up.

The `Last Stand of the Grays' won't be in it. `With their

rifles grasped in their stiffened hands, mid a ring of the dead

and dyin',' as some fathead sings. Can you hear them now?"

"Very far away."

"That little lot will do no good, but I expect their search

parties are all over the wood. Well, I was telling you my tale

of woe. They got us soon to this town of theirs--about a

thousand huts of branches and leaves in a great grove of trees

near the edge of the cliff. It's three or four miles from here.

The filthy beasts fingered me all over, and I feel as if I should

never be clean again. They tied us up--the fellow who handled me

could tie like a bosun--and there we lay with our toes up,

beneath a tree, while a great brute stood guard over us with a

club in his hand. When I say `we' I mean Summerlee and myself.

Old Challenger was up a tree, eatin' pines and havin' the time of

his life. I'm bound to say that he managed to get some fruit to

us, and with his own hands he loosened our bonds. If you'd seen

him sitting up in that tree hob-nobbin' with his twin

brother--and singin' in that rollin' bass of his, `Ring out, wild

bells,' cause music of any kind seemed to put 'em in a good

humor, you'd have smiled; but we weren't in much mood for

laughin', as you can guess. They were inclined, within limits,

to let him do what he liked, but they drew the line pretty

sharply at us. It was a mighty consolation to us all to know

that you were runnin' loose and had the archives in your keepin'.

"Well, now, young fellah, I'll tell you what will surprise you.

You say you saw signs of men, and fires, traps, and the like.

Well, we have seen the natives themselves. Poor devils they

were, down-faced little chaps, and had enough to make them so.